Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 35, Number 27, 4 December 1909 — Page 6

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OUR niece Millicente is only twenty-two, and to see her with her baby in her arms is considerably like watching a wax doll play with a kitten, or a wild rose give attention to a butterfly. No one can think how tenderly we observe her Peleas and I, who are seventy and are supposed to be concerned with far soberer matters. In reality we know none of the sweet surprises of experience and even of wisdom that so confirm our joy in life as the sight of our niece Millicente with her baby. It chanced that when the baby was but a few weeks old the young father was called to The Hague upon some government business a state of affairs for which it really seemed to Peleas and me that the United States should be called to account. For experience shows that the government will go irresistibly forward, but Milliccnte's husband can never be compensated for that ab-

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SHB DID STOP CRYINfi, THOUGH SHE LOOKED AT THESE sence; and I would like to have anyone object who can believe differently. For all his impatience to see whether the little maid had really grown to womanhood in those six weeks or so, he was obliged to report at Washington immediately upon his return. Consequently, when the steamship was almost due, our niece Millicente found that she could wait for him to see the baby's amazing improvement not one day later than that upon which his boat was to arrive. So she took train somewhere in Vermont with that very little child and arrived at our house a few minutes before her telegram, in a sad state of collapse and almost burning up with fever. She has no nurse-maid. They are very young married people indeed. The night that Millicente and her baby reached us, IMeas and I had been sitting for an hour in the dark of the drawing-room. We were happy enough, and yet it was one of the nights when all the little shadows that live so very near to one come creeping forth, each made bolder by the others. And when one is seventy there are many shadows though kept back for the greater part of the time, mind you, and never so much as allowed to show their faces. But someway that night all the shadows had arranged a rendezvous, and Peleas and I were sitting in a very circle of them. "We dreamed it differently, Ettare," Peleas had said slowly. I knew what he meant. Have we not all dreamed it differently? And then we sat thinking of the Great Dream that we had and lost a dream so bright that it was like a star. For though we are seventy now, and many bright vistas are closed to us, there was a time when Peleas could still model and I could write so that a few were deceived that the great Dream for one radiant year was in our home, too, and went away when little Cedric died. For years since then we have gone wondering where he may be now, without us? For he was so very little when he left us he could hardly take a step alone even by clinging to my finger and Peleas,

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and we laughing with all our might. And so, lest he may still be needing us as he needed us then, we are never very far from hira in thought, and that night we talked long of him, and one by one all the other little shadow-dreams went away in the presence of this dream that was no shadow, but something far more beautiful and terrible. So we were sitting with "Do you remember?" and "But do you remember?" on our lips when the doorbell rang and Nichola, our old servant, came grumbling up the stairs to answer it. We wondered a little, for we have few visitors and no small excitements. We wondered the more when the drawing-room door was thrown open and on the. threshold appeared Nichola, bearing in her arms a white bundle that wore long and alarmingly fluffy skirts. " Nichola ! " we both cried in a flutter for you do

HUMBLE PYROTECHNICS SOMEWHAT HAUGHTILY. not know how pleasant it is when the days grow colorless to have something happen which you yourself did not bring about! "Nichola! What is it? " It's a babby," Nichola informed us grimly, and laid it in Peleas arms face downward, as he told me afterward. Then she beckoned me to the hall and I went, barely able to stand, for I was certain that it had been left in a basket on the steps with nothing but a locket, and whatever were we to do with it? "Nichola!" I panted, "whose baby?" Nichola was bending over the bench in the hall, and there sat poor little Millicente, her face flushed with fever, crying helplessly. " N nobody told me," she sobbed on my shoulder, " what it would be like to travel with a six-weeks-old baby. She cried every m mile of the way here and she is a good baby, too ! " Bless the little mothers ! I have never yet known one who would not assure you, though in the presence of a child exhibiting a most dreadful temper, that her baby was " usually so good, too." Together, though I suppose that I hindered far more than I helped, Nichola and I got Millicente upstairs and put her in bed poor, nervous little thing, hardly more than a baby herself for all her wise use of the most advanced baby terms. Nichola hurried downstairs for something hot, and bustled back after a few minutes' absence with a steaming bowl of some mysterious compound how do some people always know what to bring you, hot and savory in a bowl? If I had gone down to the kitchen I am sure that I could have devised nothing but eggs. Nichola insisted upon feeding Millicente the impudent old woman has noticed that when I am excited my hands tremble. But whose do not? As for Nichola, as I have often told her, she could not tremble if a giant were to walk in the front door. Instead of fear, Nichola's way of emotion is always anger, and I dare say she would tartly remind such a giant of the purpose of the door-mat. " You'd best," said Nichola to me over her shoulder, "go downstairs and see after that babby." Nichola's scorn was scathing. Nichola dislikes a great many things, but the greatest of these is babies. When she passes one in its perambulator I have seen her take the extreme edge of the walk. "They ain't a bone in 'em," she once explained. " When you go to pick 'em up, they slimpse." I remembered this failing of Nichola's as I harried downstairs to Peleas, but I was chiefly concerned to

know how he had got on in my fifteen-minute absence Peleas, who will not even hold my Persian cat No sound came from the drawing-room. I crossed the hall quietly and opened the door. Peleas had managed to turn on the lights, and furthermore he had contrived to take off the baby's cloak and hood and veil though usually he could as easily embroider a thing as to untie it, save after a long time. And there sat Peleas on the sofa, with the baby in one arm. and he was- gravely holding a lighted match a foot from her face. As I looked, he threw the burned match in the grate, soberly lighted another, and repeated the performance. Evidently he construed some movement of the baby's face to be an answering smile ; at all events, Peleas' own face took on a most tender and inane expression, and he said clearly : "Well tol, tol, tolly toll Yes!" And then added in a tone to convince all the jurors of the world: "Of course ! " I hurried forward laughing at him, for all the sudden lump in my throat It is sad for Peleas to be nobody's grandfather when he looks so precisely like a grandfather on the stage. " What are the matches for, Peleas ?" I cried. He looked up with the adorably abashed expression that I love to bring in his eyes. " They keep its attention," he murmured apologetically. " Nothing else would. I think it's hungry. ' " ' It ' ! " cried I scornfully. " Why, it's a girl." " Well," placidly argued Peleas, " you said It's a girl,' and I said ' It's hungry.' What's the difference ? " And to this there was really no response. The baby's disturbed babbling simmered to a steady fretting which increased in volume and violence. Hunsxv 'it" undoubtedly was.

I remembered that Millicente's black bag lay on the & bench in the hall. I hurried to it, and there was the baby's bottle empty. When I came back, though Peleas was lighting matches at a furious rate, the baby was crying at the top of her small strength. " She'll disturb Millicente," I said ; " Peleas," I added, as one suggesting revolutions, "we must take her down to the kitchen and feed her." Ah, you to whom such sweet offices are the beauty 1 or, heaven help us, the burden ! of every day, what can , you possibly know of the thrill of that moment to one whose arms have been empty for so long so long? I protest that holding the keys to The Hague, and to all Holland, and to whole continents is not to be compared to the radiant responsibility of that moment. Peleas promptly stood up and extended his arms. " Take her," said he, with enchanting masculine helplessness. Peleas will not even let me carry my primroses up and down stairs, but merely because this was a baby he resigned his rights! Really I had well nigh forgotten how extraordinarily humble men are in such a presence. I took her in my arms, and she settled down with that contented little gurgle which always attends a baby's changing hands, most subtly flattering the new nurse until the storm breaks afresh, harder than ever before. This the storm did now, and I looked at Peleas a little wildly. For whatever was to be done, I must do. " Go first," said I like Caesar to his torch-bearer on the lip of the Rubicon ' and open the kitchen door." We went down the stairs, one foot at a time, and when Peleas opened the door the sight warmed my heart The kitchen was cheery and brightly lighted, a hot fire was blazing in the range, and the tea-kettle was singing away to make the most miserable at peace. Sometime I shall write an essay containing advice to those who are bluest, and the sum of it will be : go and put on the tea-kettle. I sat by the fire while Peleas, by devious ways of pantry and refrigerator, sought out the milk, and we were very merry over warming it, for it was a very wonderful occasion. Peleas spilled a great deal on Nichola's perfectly polished griddles oh, I could not have loved him if his hands had been firm and indifferent in such a pleasant excitement. Then he came and sat beside me, and the baby drank with little soft shuddering breaths at the painful memory of how hungry she realty had been. I bent above her, and so did Peleas, our heads quite close together as we watched her, and heard the little soft noises and sighs, and met her eyes grave, wondering criticism. So long so long it had been since I had seen that one serious eye lifted to me as a little face lay against my breast ! Peleas put out one finger, and the little funny hand caught it and clung to it. Peleas wrinkled his eyes at the corners and smiled up at me--I had almost forgotten how he used to do that and then wait for me to scold him and to tell him that at that rate I never could get Cedric to sleep. Someway, when Peleas had done that now, we sat silent For very little babies are never unlike, and if I had really let myself I might have imagined, and so I think might Peleas have imagined . . . that which, for more than forty years, we have only dreamed. At last the baby moved her head, gurgled a brief grace, and stared up at us unwinkingly, and then wrinkled her face most astoundingly. Peleas rose wildly and looked about frantically for the matches one would have said that we were fugitives from justice, crouched behind an open panel and that our safety depended upon keeping that baby quiet during the passing of the men-at-arms. I cannot tell how it is with others, but when one is seventy a baby affects one quite like this, and to keep it from crying seems all the law and a fair proportion of the prophets. So that when Teleas came with a box of paraffin matches and lighted whole handfuls before Millicente's baby's eyes I could say very little. She did stop crying, though she looked at these humble pyrotechnics somewhat haughtily and as if she knew far more about them than she cared to give out The stair-door, does not creak, and Nichola was quite in the kitchen before we heard her. She indulged in one comprehensive glance, which did not even omit the matches, and she passed us on the other side of the room. "It's mother wants it right straight off," she remarked, with her back toward us. Peleas and I rose promptly and meekly made our way upstairs. Old Nichola dictates to us all day long in matters in which, as I think, we are really far wiser than she ; how then should we not yield in crises of which we may be supposed to know nothing? Though I am bound to confess that I felt myself as wise as little Millicente, who, as. I have said, is a baby herself. And this brings me to something about which I have often wondered; namely, when the actual noon of motherhood may be? For, as I live, it seems to me that all the mothers of babies of my acquaintance are either themselves babies or else I catch myself thinking of them that they are too old and even spinsterish in their notions to be able perfectly to bring up the child. And yet it cannot very well be that I was the only mother neither too young nor too old to train youth properly. I laid the little thing in Millicente's bed, and Millicente smiled that tender, pitiful, young mother smile that somehow breaks one's heart no matter how happy the young mother be. And an hour later, while the doctor was with Millicente, an idea came to me that set me in a delicious flutter. I had forgotten that there are such sweet excitements in the world. I hugged the hope in silence for a moment and then shared it with Peleas. "Suppose," I said, "that Millicente should need her rest to-night?" I looked at him tentatively, expecting him to understand at once, as he almost never fails to da I did nr remember that it is far easier to understand in a matter of books or philosophy or the like, which have occupied corrxiGHT,

us these many years, than to adjust oneself without preparation to the luminous suggestion that 1 was harboring. " I hope that she will have a good night," advanced Peleas with appalling density. But suppose," I persisted, " that she should need her rest, and that the doctor thought that the baby would be certain to disturb her ? " " If it cries," suggested Peleas then, with a magnificent generosity, "you might go in and rock it awhile." "Peleas! " I cried in complete scorn, "don't you see? Maybe we can have the baby with us all night ! " Peleas looked up in surprise; then his dear face shone. " Could we, do you think? " he asked softly, as we ask when we want a thing very much. " We will ! " I promised. Therefore when we heard the doctor coming down we hurried to the hall and waited for him at the foot of the stairs. Between us we must have laid the matter before him, though I do not in the least remember what we said, but someway we made him know, for he nodded and smiled in a surprising fashion. " Yes," said he, kindly, " yes I really am persuaded that it would be an act of charity for you to keep that baby with you to-night." " On our niece's account, you know," said I with dignity. " Certainly," said he gravely, and caught up his hat and rushed away. All the time it seemed to me that he was curiously moved about something, and I feared that Millicente might be very ill. As for Peleas and me, we could hardly wait to go upstairs. Of course Nichola had to know ; she brought up the milk and the alcohol lamp and we were obliged to tell her. To tell Nichola that you mean to do something which she thinks is foolish is very much like a confession that your whole point of view is ignorant and diseased. Still in some fashion Peleas and I together told her. Our old servant regarded us with the disapprobation which it is her delight not to disguise. Then on her brown fingers she checked matters off. " No sleep for neither one o' you," she cast up the account, " headaches to-morrow. Death o cold dancin in an' out o' bed. An' a smothered babby by morn in'." " Oh, no, Nichola," said we gently but sweepingly. I brought the baby in our room to undress her. Our room was cheerful and warm. Peleas had lighted all the candles as we do on the rare occasions when we are dressing for some great event; and the open fire was burning. On a table beside the bed stood the milk and the glasses strangely enough they looked, where only my Bible and my medicine have lived for so long. The baby was asleep when we took her from Millicente, but she waked and smiled impartially and played with the ribbon of her ring in perfect peace. I took off the little garments feeling all the old skill come back to my poor hands idle to all such sweet business for more than forty years. Peleas insisted upon taking off the tiny shoes and stockings ; and when I saw the little feet in his palm, almost I could have believed for one swift moment, that the years had indeed rolled back. Then we wrapped her warmly and laid her in the great bed. And Peleas spent a long while happily tucking in and tucking down and pretending to be very useful. We had thought to read for a little while, and indeed we did try; but neither of us could keep our eyes anywhere near the book, or could listen to the other read aloud. Once her little hand was thrown up over the edge of the covers. What did we care about the friezes of the Parthenon then? Old Nichola looked in. " Best leave a lamp burnin," she said, crossly as if we needed advice " an' if it should cry. you call me." By which, as Peleas said afterward, she by no means

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"''.XsZi til n 0 WE WBKE SITTING WTTH DO VOTT REMEMBER intended to provide for the possible emotion of the lamp. To tell the truth. I was longing to feel that little head in the hollow of my arm. I laid it there presently, and tucked my hand between the two pillows, as I had been wont and held away the covering from the little face. There was the dark hair, and there was the tiny hand uplifted, and as I live! -there was the identical ruffe of lace that always used to bother about the little chin. lm that first ecstatic moment I looked sp at Peleas al99

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most frightened, and half expected the buoyant. Toothful face and the dear eyes that were wont to look down upon Cedric and me. And the dear eyes smiled, for they have neer changed. 1 lay very still, listening to that quiet breathing, to the little rutle and turning which is a tender language of its own. When one is seventy, and closes one's eye, it is wonderful how the whole world grow youthful. And when I had almost dozed, that little tender rusthn brought me back so happily that I could hardly tell which was memory of that other little head upon my arm. and which was now. Midnight was the important moment when the baby's food must be warmed, and it was I who did this, for Peleas' old familiar helplessness in this little presence delighted me beyond measure. And when she grew impatient and cried a little. Peleas valiantly lighted matches before her and she fell silent and even smiled and slept again. At rive o'clock this had to be repeated, and I record it a a mere matter of) history that in the meantime I had not slept for a moment. For there had come thronging back such a company of memories, such a very flight of the angels of the old delight of our, wonderful year when there was Cedric that the world had no room for sleep at alL Sleep! I do not suppose that anyone would chide me for being wakeful at a ball And nothing in the world! could have been so delightful to me as were those hours when that little head lay upon my arm. Sometime after daylight she awoke. Cedric had been wont to lie quietly as long as ever I would, but Milli-' ccnte's baby for it was Millicente's baby for all our ?retcnding f awoke and played with her fists. Then al ancy that had hovered over me all the night took shape,, and I told it to Peleas. ' "Dear," I said, "you know the things in the bottom drawer in the closet?" "Yes," said Peleas at once, "I have been thinking about them." "Suppose," I suggested, "that we were to to try', some of them on the baby ? " "I have been thinking the same thing.' said Feleas. It was deliciously comfortable in the room we had: kept the hearth alive all night When we were warmly wrapped and had drawn chairs before the fire, Peleas brought from the bottom drawer the box filled with the tender, yellow muslins, and the socks that Cedric had worn such a little while. I chose the lace gown that I had made myself, every stitch ; and over her little nightgown we put it on Millicente's baby. She was very good, and laughed and nestled; and so we found the long white cloak that I had embroidered, and a bonnet; that I had made. And Millicente's baby's arm doubled up in a ball when I tried to put it in the sleeve and I! suppose that there never was a baby's arm that did not; do this under similar circumstances, but I have known; only one little arm. And when the pink hand came, peeping through the cuff Peleas caught it and kissed it oh, I had not thought for years how he had been! used to do that! " Now ! " I said, " Peleas look now 1 " Millicente's baby sat on my knee, with her back to at' both. The little bent back in that white coat the soft collar crumpling up about the neck in spite of me. the! same little bonnet with the flower in the back and! the lace all around , Peleas laid his cheek against mine, and we cried ton gether. I am not ashamed for I did not cry with' grief; only with a longing that was like the hope of; heaven. We did not hear Nichola coming with oar coffee. So she opened the door and saw the box on the floor and) the things scattered all about She knew what theyj were. She was with us when little Cedric was here, and j she had not forgotten. She stood still for a moment, i and then set the tray down on the table.

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? AND " BTT DO YOU REMEMBER ? " OH OUR UP. Drink your coffee!" she cried sharply, and waa octt of the room before we could speak. In a moment, when I could and because MHIicente'a baby cried then I laid her in Peleas' arms and went out: to tell Nichola to bring more m: Ik. And there in the passage, leaning against the Vara, stood Nichola, our old servant, crying aa if her heart would break. " Go on away! " the said, shaking her eld gray head "go on awayf" ice Browiti -

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